PLATANACE^. 



SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 



105 



PLATANUS RACEMOSA. 



Sycamore. 



Leaves deeply 3 to 5-lobed, the lobes entire, remotely and obscurely dentate or 

 rarely sinuate-toothed, truncate or rarely slightly cordate or wedge-shaped at the base. 

 Fruit racemose. 



Plat anus racemosa, Nuttall, Sylva^ i. 47, 1. 15 (1842). 



Audubon, Birds^ t. 362, — Bentham, PL Hartweg. 336. 

 Newberry, Pacific R, R. Rep, vi. 33, 89, t. 2, f. 10. 



holzk. iii. 278, f. 151. — Greene, Man. Bay Region Bot 



297. 



Death Valley Exped.). 



Nat. Herb 



Torrey, Bot, Mex. Bound. Surv. 204 ; Ives* Rep. 27 ; Bot. Platamis occidentalis, Hooker & Arnott, Bot. Voy. Beechey^ 



Wilkes Explor. Exped. 457. — A. de CandoUe, Prodr. xvi. 



N. 



pt. ii- 160. — Koch, Dendr. ii. 469. 



Bot. CaL ii. 66. — Sargent, Fores 



Census U. S. ix. 129. — Jankd, Bot. Jahrh. xi. 451. 



Koehne, Deutsche Dendr. 206. — Dippel, Handh. Laub- 



160, 390 (not Linn^us) (1833). 



Watson, Platanus Californica, Bentham, Bot. Voy. SulphuVj 54 



(1844). 

 Platanus Mexicana, Torrey, Sitgreaves'* Rep. 172 (not 

 Moricand) (1853) ; Pacific R. R> Rep. vii. pt. iii. 20. 



A tree^ sometimes one hundred to one hundred and twenty feet in height^ with a trunk occasionally 

 nine feet in diameter above the broad tapering base^ sometimes erect and free of branches for half its 

 height, more often dividing near the ground into several secondary stems which are erect^ incliningj or 

 prostrate for twenty to thirty feet at their base, and thick ponderous more or less contorted long 

 spreading branches which form an open irregular round-topped head ; usually smaller and generally 

 seventy to eighty feet in height, with a trunk two to three feet in diameter. The bark at the base of 

 the trunks of old individuals is three to four inches thick, dark brown, deeply furrowed, with broad 



rounded ridges separating on the surface into thin scales ; ^.^ 



hio^her on the trunk and on the branches 



thinner, smooth, and pale or almost white. The branches, which are coated at first with thick 



tomentum, which soon disappears, during their first winter are light reddish b 



d marked with 



numerous small lenticels, and gradually grow darker in their second and third years. The 

 three or fiive-lobed to below the middle, with acute or acuminate 



lobes, which 



dentate with 



remote minute callous-tipped teeth, or occasionally coarsely sinuate-toothed, and broad sinuses acute or 

 rounded in the bottom ; they are usually cordate or sometimes truncate, or wedge-shaped and decurrent 

 at the base on the petioles, six to ten inches in length and breadth, thick and firm, light green on the 

 upper surface, and on the lower surface paler and more or less thickly coated with pale pubescence, 

 which is most abundant along the broad midribs and primary veins ; they are borne on stout pubescent 

 petioles one to three inches long, and often do not all fall until spring. The stipules are an inch to an 

 inch and a half in length, and entire or dentate. The peduncles are covered with pale pubescence, and 



Ily bear four 



five heads of staminate flowers or from 



heads of pistillate flowers 



a head of staminate flowers 



nally appearing on the pistillate peduncle above the fertile heads 



The heads of fruit hang on slender zigzag glabrous or pubescent stems six to ten inches in length, and 

 are three quarters of an inch in diameter. The akene is acute or rounded at the apex, one third of an 

 inch long, tomentose while young and glabrous at maturity. 



Platanus racemosa is distributed from the valley of the lower Sacramento River in California 

 southward through the interior valleys and coast ranges of the state, finding its southern home on San 

 Pedro Martir Mountain in Lower California.^ It inhabits the banks of streams, and is exceedingly 

 common in all the valleys of the coast range from Monterey to the southern borders of the state, 



^ Brandegee, Zoe, iv. 209. 



